Saturday, January 19, 2008

Kicked out of my own caucus!

Okay, considering the back and forth with Tyler last week, this post will ring of irony. See, as I see myself, I've tried to be very supportive of the caucus. Soo, I read my flyers, listened to the phone calls, and watched this morning's coverage on channel 8 (WHICH was conveniently showing at the nail salon when I was getting my nails done.) The announcers on channel 8 were wrapping up the Republican caucus report (way to go Mitt Romney!) and announcing the Democrat rules WHICH included doors shutting at noon. I figured I had time to kill and would get to Charlotte Hill Elementary at a prompt 11:30am. Now, if you know me, that's prompt if we don't have to be there until noon . . . I mean, downright early for me. As I am walking up to the door this young gal (she was probably barely 18 decked out in Clinton garb) starts hollaring, "If you're gonna caucus you have to be in here before I shut the doors." I said to her, "the news just announced and I thought we had until noon." She looks at me all weird and like I don't know what I am talking about. Instead of telling her how well-informed I was AND that I had a personal phone call from Kate Walsh (yeah, as in the movie actress who WAS on Grey's Anatomy but who is now on her own show, in person, for real, no recording, for about 10 minutes. We're friends now, she might call back just to chat) I scurried inside.

Alright, so I am thinking, a relatively new political process will have signage for what we're supposed to be doing and where we're supposed to go, right? Ugh, no. I tried asking the young Clinton chick what I was supposed to do and spent a minute or two looking around. There were signs EVERYWHERE, but silly me not getting caught up in slogans I couldn't figure what sign was indicating the Clinton side and which was for O'bama. I saw people sitting in two different directions, people standing around, and these two lines. So I step into one of the lines to wait my turn to sign in? ask what the line is about? or something, I don't know when this guy stands up and yells, "If you are in the line after the people with the yellow papers you are too late to register." So I'm thinking, surely he means register to vote and since that's done, I stood there for a minute. Then I turn back to this lady who came in after me and said, "Is he talking about register to caucus or to vote?" She's shrugs her shoulders and the Clinton chick is looking around all lost and confused. Since she was calling people inside I assume she had some role in directing things and asked her if I was going to be able to participate. She's looking all confused when the dude stands again and about YELLS, "According to the National Democratic Rules if you weren't in line by 11:30 then you cannot participate! This young lady [she's one person in front of me] and this gentleman were given a yellow piece of paper and if you are in line after them you cannot participate in the caucus." (From now on I will call him Dick because, well, it fits his attitude and it's appropriate at a caucus!) So I turned to the Clinton chick and said, "Didn't you say if I wanted to caucus I had to be in before you shut the door?" Then she looks MORE confused and afraid of Dick and shrugs her shoulders. I said, "Perhaps you should really shut the doors so more people don't keep coming in here if that dude [Dick] is saying we can't participate." By this point there are probably 12 people who came in after me through the shut doors. She says, "Well, I am sure you can stay and watch, but you can't caucus." ????? WHAT? Whatever. I had been in there for a whole, fat 5 minutes and thought, "no thanks" so we (me and some of the other people) left. I got in my car at 11:35 (my clock is 4 minutes fast!) and was home at 11:40 after getting kicked out of my own caucus. I emailed Channel 8 news AND the Nevada's Democratic Party, but I doubt I'll hear back from them. Crazy, huh?

So, the moral here is take my own advice. Despite all my caucus rah-rah I was kicked in the pants by the whole process. I am thinking I will need to be more proactive in being in charge of SIGNAGE and PUBLICITY for any future caucuses for the Democratic party. And maybe I could give Dick some lessons in being a little more caucus friendly. He totally turned me off of the caucus . . . GOOOO Primary!

15 comments:

I'm sorry Sarah that is such a bummer.I had a good time at my caucus I don't think our rules were as strict. They were letting people vote as we were leaving. But I did get to be a delegate so I'm looking forward to the next step. Sorry, and Dick totally needed to be a little more understanding it was pretty confusing getting where we needed to be.

Sarah, I am a friend of Jerolyn's and she directed me to your blog. You'll have to look at mine for my caucus experience. Anyhow, I AM RIGHT WITH YA about the signage. AND the snotty holier-than-thou attitude of the college-age volunteers). The whole process was messy and disorganized. In the end I am glad my vote was counted, but the whole process was like having a tooth pulled!

sorry to hear that you didn't get to participate. that sucks. i think i would have made a bigger stink and called up the i-team to investigate. you would think with something important like this, the organizers would get it together.

You weren't exactly kicked out but you didn't get to participate. That's a bummer. From everything I've heard, the Republican caucus's were much more organized than the Democrats' (which, unfortunately, is kind of how it goes). I found the process very interesting. Whether I found it to be effective or not...that's another story. I'll leave it at interesting.

Now that we know what it is and how it works, when it comes around next time, we'll be prepared! Right? :-)

SUCK IT! Isn't that just how it goes. Too bad, thankfully your gal won though right? Thats all that matters right? I wonder if it will always be that confusing and I wonder if NV HAS to caucus from now on or you can get primaries back?

Here's an interesting update I just heard this morning on KNPR. They were saying how the state is going to try to reinstate the primary's in next year's senate whatever because there was such a poor report and results of everything that happened with the caucus- disorganization, noise, lask of leadership, lack of training, people missing because of work, AND volunteers not staying neutral. Which led them to say that one of the biggest complaints they've been recieving is that the Clinton party was instructing/training volunteers that they HAD to lock the doors and have everyone signed in by 11:30, and to start the thing by noon. But the Obama camp instructed that you had till noon to be in and signed in. SO there are tons and tons of people (obviously more from Obama's than Clinton's side since Clinton ended up winning) complaining about how unfair the wonderful Caucus ended up being, saying that they weren't allowed to cast their vote. Interesting, huh?